(But a note: we had seen the Founder’s news, were fol­low­ing the sto­ry, and felt as if it got decent cov­er­age at, e.g., Vine­Pair. Which sto­ries should­n’t have been writ­ten or shared to make more room for more on this?)

[When] bring­ing your decoc­tions to a boil, they will par­tial­ly, if not most­ly, con­vert, and then release more starch dur­ing the boil, which will then be ful­ly con­vert­ed in the main mash. There are two decoc­tions where the enzymes get into the right tem­per­a­ture range to con­vert starch into sug­ar, and there are two rest steps where the enzymes have even more time to con­vert more starch into sug­ar. Your whole mash goes through the right tem­per­a­ture so many times, it will even­tu­al­ly be ful­ly con­vert­ed. And to get into these right tem­per­a­ture ranges, all you need to do is fol­low a few sim­ple prin­ci­ples. And if you want, you could even do this total­ly with­out a ther­mome­ter.

I’ve been using a pop­u­lar app called Head­space for over two years, which loose­ly leans on Bud­dhist med­i­ta­tion tech­niques (with­out ever get­ting too heavy). Essen­tial­ly it’s like a lit­tle dai­ly work­out for your brain, and it helps you notice things. This prac­tise can be eas­i­ly applied to beer. It can be as sim­ple as let­ting the liq­uid in your glass hold your com­plete atten­tion, from first sip to last. Sim­i­lar­ly it can help you man­age (but impor­tant­ly, not cure) things such as social anx­i­ety, pos­si­bly even help­ing to make those moments in the pub all the more mean­ing­ful.

Some­times the places you vis­it with a lover become imbued with so much more than the beau­ty they may intrin­si­cal­ly pos­sess. They become sat­u­rat­ed with mem­o­ries, drenched in mean­ing: that beach where you stepped in and out of each other’s foot­prints; the path where she held your hand as you jumped from the stile; the estu­ary that cut into the cliffs like a half-smile, lead­ing to that spot where you kissed, her hair whip­ping against your cheeks and the sea-spray fill­ing your mouth with her salt­ed scent. And then there’s the beer on your lips in the pub that becomes yours for the week. Your pub. The pub where you told that joke; where you ate that sand­wich; where the dog fell asleep with his head in your boot. The pub where you ordered that pint you’d nev­er had before and then ordered the same beer again and again all week.

Those who have writ­ten about pubs and inns always seem to have felt they were under threat, and cer­tain­ly their his­to­ry is one of con­stant change. Girouard not­ed that ‘Lon­don is full of dead pubs. In Oxford Street…there were nine­teen pubs in 1890; today there is only one.’ The advent of rail­ways in the mid 19th cen­tu­ry was a cat­a­stro­phe for the old coach­ing inns, tak­ing away their trade. In Lon­don they dis­ap­peared – the Soci­ety for Pho­tograph­ing the Relics of Old Lon­don record­ing sev­er­al, like the Oxford Arms in War­wick Lane, in their last sad days. Now we have only the George in South­wark, that pre­cious gal­leried frag­ment off Bor­ough High Street, to show us what they were like.

Felt like a thun­der­cloud so went and bought cheese for tea. Stomp­ing my way home a pub reg­u­lar waved at me through the Ale House win­dow. Had to join him for a half of Voca­tion Pride and Joy, did­n’t I? All the auld lads saw I was grumpy & set about cheer­ing me up. Pubs are great.

As an also long-lapsed home brew­er, I have to ask why would you ever want to car­ry out a decoc­tion mash any­way? Mod­ern strains of bar­ley and mod­ern malt­ing tech­niques are such that a sim­ple, straight for­ward infu­sion mash is all you need.

I did once try decoc­tion mash­ing, and like Alan’s expe­ri­ence, it was not a suc­cess. It’s alright if you’re Pil­sner Urquell, and have been brew­ing this way for over a hun­dred years, but for us less­er mor­tals it’s infu­sion mash­ing every time.

Telling the sto­ry of the rise and fall of Ger­man lager beer in Vic­to­ri­an and Edwar­dian Lon­don, Gam­bri­nus Waltz is avail­able for Kin­dle at Ama­zon UK | Ama­zon US (It’s “excel­lent” says Mar­tyn Cor­nell.)

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